The YouTube Music Awards: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

It looks like someone has listened to me and finally created the YouTube Music Awards. For those of you who read my Music 3.0 blog, I postulated that the time was right for these awards way back on Sept 10, 2012. YouTube announced last week that it would throw it’s first awards show on November 3^rd, with none other than Lady Gaga, Eminem, and Arcade Fire as the primary guests, with YouTube up and comers CZDA and violinist Lindsey Stirling also featured. The show will be broadcast (on YouTube naturally) live from Pier 36 in New York with Jason Schwartzman as the host, with as yet unannounced performances from Seoul and Moscow as well, nicely illustrating the global nature of the service.

Now I bet you just read that and thought, “Oh no, not another awards show,” and I wouldn’t blame you a bit for feeling that way. I can sympathize, but hear me out.

Television music award shows as we know them today are shams, with the judging based on loose criteria that seems to shift with the latest social media popularity trends. Let’s take a look at what we currently have.

MTV’s Video Music Awards? The channel doesn’t even play music videos anymore, so how are they qualified to award anything? The People’s Choice Awards? The final vote may be the people’s choice, but how about the nominations? Isn’t it interesting that you can name the nominees before they’re even nominated? Read more on Forbes.

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